Recycling advisors make home visits

Posted on Aug 5, 2009

People in a number of areas across Bristol will be receiving home visits from recycling advisors from next week to encourage recycling.

These specially trained staff – recognisable by their orange ‘Recycle Now’ branded clothing – will be giving people tips on recycling and showing what they can and cannot put in their brown bin and black box. In some areas residents will be given a free roll of compostable liners to be used in their kitchen food waste caddy.

The canvassing campaign is being run at this stage as a trial so that the council can find the best way to help residents recycle more before rolling it out citywide.

The areas being used for the trial are based on rounds currently used by the waste collection crews rather than ward-based in order to make it easier to evaluate the results. They include parts of Lawrence Hill, St George, Horfield, Bishopston, Easton, Ashley, Brislington, Eastville, Frome Vale, Lockleaze and Hillfields.

Three alternative methods are being used in these areas to see which has most effect on boosting recycling:

• some areas will receive doorstep advice from the recycling advisors
• some areas will receive doorstep advice from the advisors and also be given a free roll of 50 compostable liners for their food waste caddy
• some areas will receive the roll of compostable liners but no face-to-face advice from the advisors

Pam Jones, waste & streetscene manager for Bristol City Council, said: “We wanted to test out the best ways of providing people with any help or support they might want to make recycling easier.  We are therefore trying out different ways to reach residents in different areas and see what works the best for them.  Once the trial has been completed and analysed, we will aim to roll out the programme to the whole of Bristol to ensure that everyone is getting the most out of their recycling schemes.”